Thursday, June 25, 2009
Bernard, Ken and the Burqua
Jeremy Paxman kept me up last night by trailing a confrontation between Ken Livingstone and Bernard-Henri Levy on the subject of Sarkozy's remarks about the wearing of the burqua. Only the prospect of Ant and Dec taking on Ludwig Wittgenstein on the vexed question of the private language argument could have induced more eager anticipation. In the event, Ken seemed to get the better of Bernard-Henri who, perhaps, wasn't quite at the top of his game - the hair, the jacket-shirt combination, the tanning session and the 12 hours at the gym in preparation must have addled his brain. Ken looked as though he'd walked out of Primark and into McDonalds for his shoes before having his hair cut by an illegal sleeping rough in Hyde Park and his skin bleached by his cleaning lady. Paxo tried to steer them to the heart of the matter, the cultural differences between our two 'great' nations, but he needn't have bothered, the abyss that is the Channel was up there on the screen for all to see. And burquas? I don't know. I don't like them, they depress me and they depress everyone I know. But what are you going to do?
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
Legalise guns and drugs and let the market rip.
ReplyDeleteI'm bemused by the general reaction to the Mad French Dwarf's proposal to ban the burqa. The main response seems to be in praise of his political genius and pointing out how much more sophisticated this demonstrates French political discourse to be.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, I don't buy it. Banning an item of clothing? Really? What's next? Tweed? Hoodies? Thank God that the Brits still have the residual sense that this is none of anybody else's business.
Is that as in 'ripping' or as in 'R.I.P', David?
ReplyDeleteThis one is like euthanasia, abortion and free will vs determinism. There are only bad answers.
I think there could be a 'third way' -
ReplyDeletekeep the muslims happy by letting them wear their burkas
keep the westerners happy by forcing the burkas to carry advertising.
sorted
Good thinking worm. In one of his better Bristol gags, Banksy also had a solution.
ReplyDeleteTo do?
ReplyDeleteYou cant ban it, but the state can not allow people with bin bags on their heads on to state property and thus unable to claim benefits (which most of these women are claiming on direction of their owners)
Only a complete arsehole of a judge will find that its a religious symbol, the history of the burqa points completely in the other direction.
The state has no business banning clothing but why should individuals, institutions and businesses have to implicitly condone the wearing of niqabs and burqus? What if a business refused to interview a woman wearing a burqua for, say, a sales role and she sued for religious discrimination? The defence would be a desire not to be complicit in sexual discrimination. Who would win?
ReplyDeleteTwo middle aged white men discuss the hijab. I guess there were no Muslim women available. It was a pointless discussion.
ReplyDeletewell, I don't care/mind but do they have to be black? that, I think, is why they are so depressing. I was on a public bus in Oxford last winter and almost everyone wore black - I felt as if we were heading for a funeral. nothing wrong with the bus itself which, I recall, was green.
ReplyDeleteNo, I have to say banning items of clothing per se could be reasonable if offering respite from public depression. I would appreciate a ban on football shirts - especially red - trainers, and jeans - especially of the wrong hue or artificially distressed, and on wearers the wrong side of 35. Women should be given tax credits for wearing frocks instead of trousers, and men's hats should be compulsory until culture redeems them.
ReplyDeleteWill Sarkozy be even-handed about this, and ban nuns wearing their habits in public too? As the main reason must surely be for security, any clothing covering the face should likewise be banned.
ReplyDeleteIt's tough on "hoodies" perhaps, but if it's raining I will be covering my head as usual!
And burquas? I don't know. I don't like them, they depress me and they depress everyone I know. But what are you going to do?
ReplyDeleteDebate Muslim women and men publicly about the place of Jesus in their worldview and in ours. (The 'we' gets confusing in the West but the diversity is part of freedom and pluralism and this also has to be communicated.) Jesus alone will bring freedom. You can't attack the symptom alone. And both sexes love open debate. (Death threats are also made against anyone effective in opposing the radicals, of course, but none have been carried out in the UK, that I know of. And, despite this sign of ambivalence, the protagonists I have met visibly enjoy it, most of the time.)
Fascinating how defenders of the burqa focus entirely on shallow equivalences and externalities (e.g. nuns wear black robes, so do some Muslim women therefore all black robes have the same cultural meaning- EH?) and not on what it actually represents. You see this again and again in Britain- a willful refusal to acknowledge a symbol of repression and isolation for what it is. Head in the sand time, as usual. Not saying I'd ban it, but let's at least admit it is a howlingly awful piece of barbarism, and as Bryan says, thoroughly depressing.
ReplyDeleteAnd in fact we do have codes regulating dress- if I wanted to walk down the street in blackface, or in a PVC slave outfit with cut outs around my ass and balls, and a chain around my neck then I probably wouldn't get too far.
Actually Rod Liddle is good on this in the Spectator:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/3715688/sarkozys-burqa-ban-panders-to-racism-not-feminism.thtml
I think we're missing the point - it's those damn Frenchies, silly! But when it comes to matters sartorial, the French usually appear to have the upper hand. (and it's usually Ken that wants to ban stuff for ludicrous reasons, like photography in parks equals paedophilia etc.) I'll go with Sarkozy...hell, what do I know?
ReplyDeleteIsn't Britain the most multicultural country in Europe? Consider this, and the fact we've had very little of the racial strife and tensions of our European neighbours -such as France - we must be doing something right. Sarkozy is wrong.
ReplyDeleteBurquas will represent different things to different people - even among those who wear them. I know several women, born into secular Western societies, who choose to wear the burgua because it is a way of asserting their identity. History shows that if there is one guaranteed way to get people to vigorously assert their identity it is to try to repress that identity (think of how the Jews have survived culturally).
ReplyDeletePeople should not have to choose between loyalty to state and loyalty to religion. Isn't that one of the things the Secular society is supposed to defend?
people must wear whatever they want without a discussion.
ReplyDelete